Jupiter's Black Spot

November 18, 2003

One of the topics(1) Phil Plait tackled was the mysterious dark spot recently seen on Jupiter (pictured near the planet's equator in this photo by Eric Ng). Plait does not believe the theory that the black spot is the aftermath of a nuclear explosion arising from the crashed Galileo probe, as espoused by Richard Hoagland. He said it would be impossible for the plutonium in the craft to create this kind of fusion and produce a local hot spot of this size.